Mullion Creek Public School isn’t big – it has about 40 students all up – but on Friday morning the grounds were filled with over 400 people as the Variety Bash rolled into town.
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Over 100 cars and 300 people, known as ‘bashers’, are taking part in this year’s event, which has traveled over 1000 kilometres this year, visiting schools across the state to donate equipment, books and technology.
Mullion Creek Public School was the tenth school the 2018 Variety Bash has visited, and alongside the equipment was $5000 for the school to purchase iPads and resources to teach students coding.
Mullion Creek Public School principal Sally Beer principal said the donations were “amazing” for the school, but having over 400 people at the school gave the entire community a buzz.
“It’s wonderful and the resources they’ve provided to us but also the children getting to mix and see all the wonderful cars,” she said.
“To see how much fun they’re having as well, it’s just wonderful.”
Mrs Beer said the donation will help add to the school’s robotics program, including to buy spheros, which are balls that can be coded by students to follow instructions, and blue bots, which help teach younger students the basics of coding.
She also said she was grateful to the “incredibly generous” bashers for the gifts.
“We now have 12 spheros and 12 blue bots will provide another level of coding and a differentiation of coding that’s already done, so it’s wonderful to have access to resources that we wouldn’t normally purchase,” she said.
“For them to now have those and all those other gifts like books to add to our library because books do cost a lot of money and just having extra books and the sporting equipment, I was just looking at buying more balls.”
Variety NSW/ACT head of regional development Jason Bourke, who is originally from Orange, said the Variety Bash was a “seven-day adventure”, and was hoping to have raised a million dollars by Saturday from this year’s trek.
He said Friday’s donation was to “ensure these kids stay current and connected and stay up with technology,” he said.
“Obviously a lot of kids in regional communities don’t get the opportunities the kids in the city get.”
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